The Long Weekend

Image: bulldogza / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It's been a nice, long weekend. And for me, it's kind of still going on.

I'm not too sure how it happened, but I ended up with a four-day weekend this week. I mean, I'm the new guy. I've been at my new branch for approximately two weeks, and most of last week I wasn't even there. I was in class at the main building downtown. That story is yet to come. Stay tuned.

So how did I get this four-day weekendish honor? Well, it all comes down to my temporary symbiotic relationship with my trainer. While I'm officially in training, I'm sort of attached to his hip. His schedule is my schedule. He works, I work. He jumps, I jump. That's pretty much how it works. It's so I don't get thrown into the deep end of the pool without completely knowing the ups and downs of the computer system that I've just learned to use.

I'm not sure if the word symbiotic is correct to use here. That implies that there's a mutually beneficial thing going on. I'm not sure that he's actually getting anything out of being my trainer. I guess I'm more of a parasite, as the trainee in this situation.

Anyway, the Coach had already been scheduled to have a four-day weekend built around the 4th. And so, when I moved in, I got the same deal. Of course, the trade off is that I have to work this Saturday. Seems fair to me.

But what have I done with myself this weekend? So very much. Let us begin...

Saturday morning my mom came by to help me with the rest of my unpacking. We got a lot done and realized, or re-realized, that I just don't have enough room for all my things. Let me just say, it's hard to consolidate your entire life into one bedroom when you're used to having your very own very large apartment all to yourself. But here I am. Consolidated. With so many books and movies and nowhere to put them. I hope I can make sense of it all soon, but for right now, it's kind of a clutter.

Saturday evening I was invited to a cook-out at the Caldwell Cabana. It was a great time. We ate and laughed a lot. By the way, have you ever played Balderdash? If you want to laugh, that's a good one to play. Seriously, you can get all kinds of inappropriate with your answers if you're creative enough.

Sunday started out kind of slow. I was still getting some things settled in my bedroom, trying to find a place for everything, and then I got a call from a couple college friends. Tree and Shay wanted to know if I'd like to go downtown to have dinner with them. We had been planning to hang out Monday, but what would it hurt to hang out two days in a row. I mean, I am kind of awesome.

So we went downtown to Fork in the City. Not too shabby. We had pizza and enjoyed the evening outside. And what's great is that the restaurant is right across the street from the building that I would do pretty much anything to live in. The Cotton Mill looks like the most amazing apartment ever. I mean, it looks even better than my place in Wake Forest, and that's saying something.

I digress, after dinner we decided to hit the Redbox where we rented Due Date. It was pretty funny, but not the greatest movie I've seen this year.

For my Independence Day celebration, I started out at Shay's pool with her and Tree. After that we decided to do some looking around at Grand Home Furnishings. Being there made me wish that I was super-rich, just so I could buy all kinds of new furniture. We all tested out some Tempur-Pedic beds, which were amazing. Coming home last night to sleep on my borrowed air mattress left me feeling a little empty inside. Someday... someday...

A late lunch at Cheddar's came after the furniture store exploration. But you heard all about that already, if you read yesterday's post. It's worth repeating, though: the Monte Cristo was phenomenal.

After all that I came back here and pretty much crashed. Probably has something to do with the amount of sunlight my skin absorbed while I was at the pool yesterday, but I was pretty wiped out. I looked at myself in the mirror this morning and, yeah, I'm pretty red. Looks worse than it feels though, which is kind of odd. It usually hurts me pretty bad when I get sunburned. Not that I'm complaining. I don't mind when there's no pain. Not gonna look that gift horse in the mouth.